ADC Budget Emerges Unscathed
From Close Scrape In Congress

WASHINGTON — It was a close call, but the federal animal damage control program survived a determined assault in the U.S. House last week.

The animal rights crowd was briefly jubilant last Tuesday, believing they had scored a rare blow against predator control after a 229-193 vote on an amendment that would have slashed $10 million from ADC, more than a third of the budget. The measure was sponsored by U.S. Reps. Charles Bass, R-N.H., and Peter DeFazio, D-Ore.

A technical flaw in the amendment allowed ADC supporters to bring it back for another vote the following day, however.

In the interim, the "greens’" self-professed "stunning victory" awakened complacent backers in agriculture, aviation and other affected sectors. They pointed out that the budget cuts would not only expose livestock and crops to devastating losses, but would also hamper efforts to protect the public from rabies and jeopardize programs that protect aircraft from potentially fatal bird strikes.

The re-vote produced a 232-192 margin of victory for ADC, prompting big sighs of relief from livestock industry leaders and anguished howls from the animal rights crowd.

"It seems some folks just don’t know the meaning of the word NO!" wrote Defenders of Wildlife spokesman Roger Featherstone in a mass "action alert" E-mailing to fellow activists.

Featherstone’s missive derided predator control as an "unnecessary subsidy to the livestock industry," and included a variety of figures purporting to prove the program worthless — or worse. Ironically, however, a careful reading of those statistics makes the opposite point.

Featherstone, for example, wrote that ADC spending rose 70 percent in the decade between 1983 and 1993 and the predator take increased 30 percent. "However," he continued, "livestock losses during the same time period did not increase."

ADC supports could happily argue that that was precisely the idea.

"I think the reversal ... stunned the animal rights groups that thought they had finally won one for the coyote," said Texas Farm Bureau associate legislative director Gary Joiner.

He praised agriculture-oriented House members, including Reps. Charles Stenholm, D-Stamford, and Henry Bonilla, R-San Antonio. Twenty-five of 30 House members from Texas voted to reinstate the funding. Texans voting for the cuts the first time around included Democrats Lloyd Doggett, Ruben Hinojosa, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Nick Lampson and Ciro Rodriguez, as well as Republican Sam Johnson.